EDITORIAL: Budget showdown was unnecessary

As it turns out, the latest budget fight in Washington that threatened a government shutdown was unnecessary.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency had enough money in its disaster relief fund to last until the start of the new fiscal year yesterday.

It didn't need the extra $1 billion requested by the Obama administration.

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The disaster aid was part of a budget bill to keep the government running for a few more weeks.

The FEMA aid request provoked another battle between Democrats and Republicans, and another threat of a government shutdown like that over raising the debt ceiling this summer.

The latest budget stalemate has turned disapproval of Congress into real anger.

The political gamesmanship dismayed people, such as homeowners in East Haven whose houses were destroyed by Hurricane Irene or those in Joplin, Mo., a town wrecked by tornadoes in the spring. Individuals and local governments count on federal disaster relief to help clean up the mess after a storm. But, the assumption there would be aid had begun to waver.

Republicans insisted that any increase in disaster relief be offset by cutting other spending. Given the nation's debt of more than $14 trillion, spending is going to have to be cut somewhere, some day.

But traditionally, spending cuts have never been required for disaster relief to be approved.

The GOP stand was astonishingly shortsighted in upending a public expectation that the government would be there immediately to help when there is a calamitous event.

The Democrats didn't fare much better.

They decided it was more important to protect subsidies for solar panels and for Detroit to make fuel-efficient cars than to get money quickly out the door to help people who had been left homeless.

The Republicans and Democrats were saved from themselves by FEMA's scraping together enough money to continue disaster relief.

The threat of a government shutdown has passed. It wasn't the first time, and likely won't be the last, that a badly divided Congress has scared or angered the public.

Editorial courtesy of The New Haven Register, a Journal Register Co. newspaper.